1. Field of the Invention
The invention is an anionic or amphoteric surfactant composition with reduced viscosity. The composition is a mixture of a surfactant and a viscosity reducing amount of an alkyl polyglycoside and alkali metal chloride.
Anionic surfactants and amphoteric surfactants are known materials which have many uses. They are generally sold in a mixture with water containing from about 30 to about 80% surfactant. The mixture can also contain hydrotropes which make the surfactant compatible with water and reduce viscosity. Generally as the amount of surfactant in the mixture exceeds about 30% by weight, the mixture becomes more viscous until a paste like mixture or gel is formed. It would be useful to provide a means for reducing the viscosity of aqueous surfactant mixtures so that the mixtures could be shipped at higher surfactant concentrations and higher surfactant concentrations could be transferred in plant processes. At concentrations above about 50% by weight, aqueous solutions of anionic and amphoteric surfactants have the character of viscous liquids, gels or pasty solids.
In some applications, the surfactants are spray dried to provide a powder material which can be blended with other dry materials to prepare a detergent formulation. It would be useful to provide a pumpable composition with a higher concentration of surfactant so that a higher throughput of the spray dryer can be obtained.
2. Statement of the Related Art
It is known that the addition of alkyl polyglycosides to a phosphate built aqueous crutcher slurry can reduce the viscosity of the slurry (U.S. Pat. No. 4,675,127). U.S. patent application Ser. No. 07/260,646 discloses that the addition of an alkyl polyglycoside and an alkali metal chloride to a carbonate containing crutcher slurry, reduces the viscosity of the slurry.
It is also known that addition of an alkyl glycoside and ammonium chloride to an aqueous liquid detergent formulation can increase the viscosity of the formulation (U.S. Pat. No. 4,732,696). U.S. patent application Ser. No. 07/353,723 discloses that the addition of an alkyl polyglycoside and an alkali metal chloride within a critical range increases the viscosity of certain liquid sulfosuccinate detergent compositions. U.S. Pat. No. 4,488,981 discloses that the addition of alkyl mono and polyglucosides having alkyl groups with six (6) carbon atoms or less in the alkyl group, to aqueous mixtures of anionic or anionic and nonionic surfactants in water lowers the viscosity of the mixture.